Hannah Montana of Waverly Place: The Bonding
by Thor2000
Summary: Miley wishes her life was easier; Alex dreams she just like Hannah Montana. Now, Hannah wakes up and she's a wizard and the Russo family has ceased to exist. Can Jerry solve the mystery?
1. Chapter 1

The beach was empty and a blanket of starry night covered Malibu. The surf pounded the beach as late night beachcombers searched the beach for relics or artifacts as they collected crab or grunion. Surrounded by the shadows of beach houses and rising hills, these late night denizens rarely saw any activity except for the songs from the old light house or the odd headlights arriving up at one of the beach houses. At one of those houses, a limousine pulled in as one of it's parties raced around, opened the other back door and pulled out a body that seemed dead but was still just barely walking. Miley Stewart the pop star was half-asleep and barely awake. Known to the world as Hannah Montana, she was exhausted from her benefit concert to raise money for African relief. Even joined by Kellie Pickler, the Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato, Jesse McCartney, Carrie Underwood and several others, she felt as tired if she had did the concert by herself. Her father guided her into the house one step at a time, their shadows crossing the open and dark first floor lit by moonlight and toward the stairway on the landing lit by a solitary light up top. The girl blindly and instinctively lifting one leg after another as if she were a zombie, her father merely there to keep her from falling down the steps. On the top step, she almost turned and headed for the bed in her brother's room.

"And no…" Her father kept her on her way. "You're not that kind of brother and sister." Robby Ray kept her path on course around the corner and to her room. Poking over the door with his foot, he sighed tiredly himself after making it home, pulling off his daughter's blonde wig and her boots to let her sleep in her clothes. He stroked her tired brow and kissed her delicate sleeping forehead.

"Night, bud…" He stepped back and started for the door. As he closed it, the latch snapped into place as Miley's eyes popped awake.

"Hello Los Angeles!!!" She jumped out of bed to her bedroom floor and started singing into her hairbrush from the nightstand. "Wasn't Kellie great! _You get the limo out front! Hot style, every shoe every color_…" She was singing to her darkened bedroom as her father rushing back.

"That's your last encore for the night!" Robby Ray took the brush from her and pushed her to her bed. "You jump up like that again, and I'm tying you to that bed!"

"Daddy…" Miley was really out of it. "Can Taylor and Kellie come over for a sleepover? I promise we won't crank call Demi Lovato."

"Maybe another time, bud…" Robby Ray pushed her down and draped the blanket over her. "You just go to sleep. I can almost guarantee you'll meet Kevin, Joe and Nick in your dreams."

"Ooooo, daddy, Jonii…" Jonii was her pet name for the Jonas brothers as a group.

"Yeah, that's right…" He started backing up from her back in bed. "But you stay away from Robert Pattinson. He's too old for you."

"Ooooo, Bobby…" Miley was dreaming again.

"Sweet niblets!!!" He turned to leave again, but left the door ajar this time. Her long dark hair mussed in a big heap on her head, Miley once more started descending into her dreams into a place where her private and public lives merged and her school was filled with the likes of Kelly Clarkson and Britney Spears. Christina Aguilera and Shakira were cheerleaders, and Robert DeNiro was her principal. Madonna was her history teacher, Paula Abdul was her dance teacher and Simon Cowell was her mean biology teacher. It was the kind of world she almost wished really existed.

"Why can't my life be so much easier…." She talked in her sleep.

At that time, hundreds of miles away on the East Coast and at least five hours ahead of her, seventeen-year-old Alex Russo was asleep in her Waverly Place home in New York City. In two more hours she'd be forced awake to go to school, but actually going to school in another five hours. In her dreams, this brunette beauty of Italian and Mexican heritage was fantasizing she was Hannah Montana. In her head, she was on a huge stage over a hundred feet across with millions of fans worshipping the ground she stood on. This is where she thought she should be, this was where she could be herself. She was loved by thousands, everyone wanted to be her friend, every boy wanted to be her boyfriend…

"_You get the limo out front! Hot style, every shoe, every color_…" Alex sang to her fans and expressed her personality through her moves.

"_When you're famous it can be kind of fun_…" Miley mumbled the lyrics out of habit in her sleep.

"_It's really you but no one ever discovers_…" Alex sang the same song in her dreams

"_Who would have that a girl like me_…" Miley knew the song.

"_Would double as a superstar_…." Alex turned to her left side in her sleep.

Miley turned and struggled to her left side.

Alex stirred and turned to her right side.

Her dreams turning into one of her concerts, Miley turned to sleep on her right side. In her sleep-induced visions, she saw Hannah Montana on stage and she was in the audience. What was going on here? Who was this girl? She started rushing to the stage.

In the real world, Alex was now sleeping in the bedroom of a Malibu beach house, and Miley was sleeping in the bedroom loft over a sandwich place in a suburban New York City neighborhood.

"_You get the best of both worlds_…" Alex was singing her heart out to her fans. "_Chilling out, taking it slow, then you rock out the show_…" She noticed this other girl rushing to the stage and climbing up on it. Who was this annoying skinny brunette interrupting her concert? Miley was coming straight toward her. The aspects and laws of this dream world started changing. Alex was suddenly standing before Hannah Montana.

Miley was back home in California; Alex was back home on Waverly Place.

On the dreamscape, Miley was standing before Hannah Montana…

Both girls reached to take the microphone, their hands melting through each other's in the process. In the real world, Alex vanished from her bed, and a gust of wind poured through her home, wafting through the place and stirring up the sub shop on the first floor. The sub shop's tables and chairs crashed into the entryway barring anyone from entering. The trapped hurricane devastated the restaurant and poured back upstairs, blowing open doors and tearing the blankets off the Russo family asleep in bed.

In her sleep, Miley gasped in bed and turned to her left side as if she was pulling something away from the air above her bed, but then her alarm rang and she woke up. Was it morning already? She felt as if she had just fallen asleep, but she felt great. She wasn't tired at all. Those mere five hours of sleep had done her a world of good. She grinned with a light chuckle and stretched her arms out and arched her back to invigorate herself. Still clad in her Hannah wardrobe from the night before, she swung her feet out of bed and rose up pulling her top of to take a shower. That is, if there was any hot water left in the house. Through the thin wall, her idiot brother was in the next bathroom singing in the shower.

"Jackson, leave me some hot water!!!" Miley pounded on the wall.

She heard her brother singing even louder as if he cared about her at all.

"Well, I can fix that!!" Miley suddenly realized she had a way of dealing with him. She spun round to a wand on her nightstand, flipped it up and caught it out of the air to swing it into the direction of her brother's room and mentally exacting revenge upon him. In seconds, Jackson was screaming his head off through the house.

"Daddy!!!!"

Down in the kitchen, Robby Ray Stewart looked to his wife, Theresa, and rolled his eyes. The kids were fighting again, and there was likely magic involved. Robby flipped another pancake, and she poured the orange juice.

"Daddy!!!!" Jackson was screaming. Clad in his blue robe, he came rushing down the stairs to the living room covered in a thick red sauce in his hair and over his body. "Mom!!! Look what Miley did!!!"

"Honey," Theresa was lightly shaking her head. "I'm sorry." Robby checked the sauce his son was drenched in.

"Cocktail sauce." He realized. "Son, how about whipping your dad up some crawdads to go along with it."

"I'll whip you something up." Jackson pulled out his wand. "A giant brunette crawdad girl with a giant ego!!!" He started to cast a spell himself, but his mother snatched his wand away from him.

"Jackson, for the last time…" Theresa scolded him with a Spanish accent. "How many times have I told you? No using magic on your sister!"

"It's not fair!!!" Jackson was screaming and jumping up and down in the living room with cocktail sauce dripping into the carpet. "Miley uses magic on me all the time. I want her punished!"

"Jackson," Robby Ray sipped his morning coffee. "You know how I feel about magic. That's your mother's department."

"I'm sorry, honey…" Theresa tried cleaning him off. "She will be punished this time. I promise."

"I am so kicking her butt in the wizard contest and keeping my powers." Jackson mumbled a bit hostile. "She shouldn't get to be Hannah Montana and keep her magic."

"Jackson…" After a nice shower and some more magic, Miley came down to breakfast fully clean and ready for school in her school clothes. She had heard what he said and didn't care. "Jack's Crab Shack called. They're out of sauce." She giggled a bit. Jackson mocked her behind her back. Theresa stopped her.

"Miley…" Theresa stopped her. "You made this mess. Clean your brother up and get him ready for school."

"Fine…" Miley sighed and turned her wand up to her brother. No spell, no incantation… just a picture in her mind as her mother had taught her. Jackson was bathed in light that dissipated to reveal him dressed as Emperor Napoleon with his hand tucked in his coat and a big French commander tri-corner hat on his head. She always did picture him as a nut. He made a face at her.

"Miley!!!" Her parents scolded her.

"Fine!!" She flicked her wand again and placed him in attire she'd seen him wear several times before at school. She sipped her juice and started eating her pancakes. Finally a bit content, Jackson checked his hair for bits of sauce or a tail from his pants. From the deck out to the beach came the sound of a skateboard on the wood deck. Miley's friends were arriving to walk her to school and get some pancakes as well. Oliver with the mop-top of black hair skidded to a stop and flipped up his board, leaving it out on the deck. Clad in a dress more ideal for a preschooler, Lily wore a dress covered in lollipops with a necklace made from chocolate kisses. Upon entering, she grinned toward Jackson.

"Hi Jackson…" She gasped dreamily at him.

"Lily…" Jackson felt awkward.

"Hey, Miley…" Oliver came over and sat by Miley at the table. He leaned over to give his favorite squeeze a kiss, but Robby Ray nixed that with the plate he had used to bring out the sausages held between them. Her father was not going to watch them smooching at the breakfast table.

"You were awesome last night!" He'd been in love with her ever since he discovered she was Hannah Montana. "I was a little jealous when you sang with Nick Jonas, but… I got over it."

"Oh…" Miley awed romantically with him. "Was my Ollie-Wolly jealous?"

"Just a bit, Miley-Wiley..."

"I didn't want to make my Jolly-Ollie uncomfortable."

"Is Jackson-Waxson going to barf?" Jackson ate standing up before rushing to school. "Yes, yes, he is…." Her mother swatted him with a dishtowel to stay out of his sister's business.

"Jackson…" Lily felt her heart tugging as she rushed to him. "Care to give me a ride?" She eyed him as her future boyfriend. He gazed at her as his sister's weird friend.

"I don't think so…" He picked up his twelfth grade school books and rushed to meet his friends before his first class. Lily's teenage infatuation with him remained unfulfilled. A bit deluded as well as whimsical, she broke a lollypop off her dress to place in her mouth.

At that moment, Jerry Russo woke to a strange scene in his Waverly Place home. His room was barren and deserted but for him, the ruined bed he was on and the broken and warped furniture. The room was decrepit with wind blowing in through broken glass in the windows, debris and trash on the worn and tattered carpet, and the wallpaper around him was peeling. This place looked as if it had not been lived in for years.

"Theresa?" He rose from bed in his pajamas. His wife was not by his side. He then feared about his children. "Alex!!!" He raced out through trash and soda cans on the floor to his daughter's room. The door was barely attached; it was holding on by one hinge. The room itself was deserted and void of furniture save for a broken chair and torn box in the empty closet. His son's room was also deserted, it's windows broken and the walls crumbling apart with huge holes in the plaster.

"Justin! Alex! Max!!!" He raced through his bare feet, but all he found was echoes, a wind blowing around the trash on the floor. What had happened here? Where was everyone? Down in the loft, the terrace windows were covered in years of grime and rust from over several years. The place was empty and deserted. Abandoned and desolate, the shop on the first floor was in the worst shape. The chairs and tables were rusted and derelict; the windows boarded up from the outside. It had not been swept in years. A menu from the shop from the floor had years of dust caked on it. Whatever did this was a very powerful spell.

"Theresa!!!" Jerry was losing it. "Alex?? Kids!!!" He raced around looking for answers, just barely catching a glimpse of a figure in the kitchen. He paused, hesitated and rushed toward it. A fleeting shadow racing over the stained and ruined cabinets of the preparation area. That was when Jerry saw it. It was the ghost of a tall beautiful woman with long brown hair. She was shying away from him into the wall.

"Where's my family?!!!" Jerry took a measuring cup and hurled it angrily into the wall. "What did you do to them?!! I want them back!!!" He stumbled a bit and collapsed to the floor in his pajamas. His heart breaking, his mind losing it… He started sobbing a very broken and lonely man…


	2. Chapter 2

2

When she was not Hannah Montana, Miley attended Seaside High School in Malibu where her best friends helped hide her magic and skills in wizardry as well as her double identity as a pop star. Miley drove them in together in her cherry red convertible, but as she arrived, someone was parked in her assigned spot. A look around to see of anyone was watching, and the pop star in her secret identity pulled out her wand and mystically sent that squatter's vehicle to the center of the football field, then pulled her car in to her spot with a big loving grin on her face.

"I love being a wizard!!" She giggled.

"Miley, honey…" Oliver was in the passenger seat by her playing the role of boyfriend. "Aren't you afraid that one of these days you're going to accidentally reveal magic to the world."

"My god…" Miley turned off her vehicle and reached to get her schoolbooks. "You're starting to sound just like Jackson!"

"Well, Jackson is smart…" Lily climbed out of the back seat on Miley's side of the car. "And handsome… and strong… and… I just think of his big brown eyes and I get weak in the knees!" Miley started making sounds as if she was about to regurgitate. She hated the fact that Lily had this unrequited infatuation with her older brother. It was just creepy beyond creepy.

"Lily, please!" Miley started across the parking toward the back entrance near the school cafeteria. "Not on a full stomach!" Several of the seniors, some of them in their second and even third years as high school seniors, were smoking cigarettes under the extended roof, one of them was actually pregnant, but Miley pretended not to notice them as she hurried inside the school and into the gym lobby separating the cafeteria from the upper gymnasium level. Turning down the first hallway, they crossed the cafeteria on their left and the auditorium on their right. "Dandruff Danny" Aikerson was near the book store to welcome them with a big wave, and "Applepie Tommy" Turner turned up his head of bright red hair to Miley and her friends. Lily went straight for her locker down near the history classroomsand opened it to an interior covered with Jackson's pictures. She kissed the biggest picture in the center. With this spectacle, Miley made a face based on a combination of revulsion and confusion.

"Miley," Oliver had a locker across the hall from them. "How about a pizza after school?"

"Oh," Lily checked her lollipop dress and adjusted the licorice stitched into it. "I got a coupon from Mister Pizza! I'll see if I can get Jackson to come with me."

"Oooo…uh, Lily…" Miley reacted as to not hurt her feelings. "Uh, actually I was thinking of getting some alone time with Oliver."

"Oh…" Lily accepted her wishes. "Oh…" She thought about it. "Hey, why don't Jackson and I get together and we can double date?" She was so sure she had a thing with Jackson that Miley and Oliver looked at each other out of fear.

"Lily…" Oliver tried to be delicate. "You and Jackson aren't dating."

"You take that back!!!" Lily grabbed him by the shirt and twisted it with the skin underneath. "He's my boyfriend – he just doesn't know it yet!!!" She gritted her teeth hissing with her face tensed up into a snarl. Oliver began squealing from the pain as Miley reacted to save him from that attack.

"Lily, let him go!!!"

"She's got my chest hair!!!" Oliver sounded like a girl.

"Lily, let…" Miley wrenched Lily's grip loose to free her boyfriend. "…him go!!" She paused after getting through that. "Wow, you're strong…" There was a loud mass of students coming up the Junior Classmen hallway and coming toward them. Lily had to turn round to see them, but coming closer and closer was a group of students crowding someone. At this center of excited and screaming classmates were photographers taking pictures, students with pens and a flurry of camera flashes going off. As they came closer and closer, Miley, Oliver and Lily could see a part in the crowd and the reason for the attention. The cute brunette in the red hat, black jacket and blue skirt was another pop star known as Michayla. Interviewed by a reporter, signing dozens of autographs and being mobbed by her fans, she was known for the songs "If Cupid Had A Heart," "Bikini Girl" and "Flying Like A Mercedes" as well as her role as the teenage vampire Lilith in the _Haunted High School_ movies, but she was famous in the tabloids for dissing and fighting with her pop rival, Hannah Montana, who unbeknownst to her attended the very school to which she was now applying. In her secret identity, Miley narrowed her eyes out of hostility and locked her eyes on her, her lips parting out of hatred, her perfect white teeth starting to hiss from her breath seething through them. Michayla never noticed Miley; she just kept talking to the reporter and responding to the deluge of autograph requests.

"What's Michayla doing here?"

"Didn't you hear?" Lily spoke up. "She got a TV series where she plays a girl going to school. In order to get experience for the role, she's decided to attend public school for one month." Miley looked back at that pop star diva.

"Really…" Miley saw a chance to get even for all the Hannah-bashing that brunette diva did in the past. She plucked her wand out from her boot. Oliver snatched it from her.

"Lily, no!!!" He warned her. "Look, you already know you're the bigger person and the bigger star. Are you really going to sink as low as to attack Michayla with magic?"

"Miley…" Lily was checking her Blackberry device. "Michaya's song, "Supergirl," just knocked your song, "Party in The USA," out of the Top Five."

"Give me that wand!!!" Miley dragged Oliver down to the floor trying to get her wand back. Watching the scuffle, Lily looked round once and started recording their fight rolling around on the school floor for YouTube.


	3. Chapter 3

3

Once there was a Waverly Street Sub Station but no more. The location was now a dirty and deserted former sandwich shop that belonged to Jerry Russo, a person with no identity or public record. The rooms were deserted, and the place was derelict, deserted and uninhabited. There was no sign of a person ever having lived there. The only room intact in the entire place was the Magic Lair, his inner sanctum for teaching his kids in the mystical arts. Whatever had happened to change his life was not powerful enough breech the spells tied to the room. Jerry cleaned himself up as best as he could, chained up the front entrance and buckled up against the cold Atlantic breeze striking the city. Without money in his pocket, he walked the block to his bank, but they had no record of him having an account. He tried to borrow money from his friends... Rich at the market, Danny at the burger place and Tom the police officer, but they didn't recognize him nor know him. He eventually found Terry Grant who had attended school with him. He didn't recall Jerry at all, but Jerry knew enough of his life that Terry gave Jerry the benefit of the doubt, blamed his infallible memories on time and loaned Jerry fifty dollars. It was a reasonable start for the confused father. Unsure where to start, he checked at the home of his daughter's best friend, Harper Finkle, but the Finkles there thought he had the wrong house. They didn't have a daughter by that name. Worried and concerned, Jerry took a cab to the school to ask about his kids, but they had no record or memory of them either. Feeling as if he was actor Jimmy Stewart in that Frank Capra Christmas movie, Jerry started panicking. He was losing hope. No life, no hope, no family… Someone had to know who he was… It was then he realized he was searching in the wrong place. He was looking for his family in the non-magic world. He had to find them in the world of magic, but… how could he do that without his magic? Who was the closet person in the city with knowledge of magic? His quest took him into Soho and the rows of brownstone homes there fronted by trees and neighbors walking dogs. Nice cars were parked along the curb. Jerry was turning hopeful. Catching a ride on Cash Cab, Jerry won $1400 by answering trivia questions from driver Ben Bailey.

"Thank you very much!!!" Jerry was let out on the curb, stood a second as Bailey drove away and then started dancing and punching the air excitedly. If he ever got his family back, he was sharing the money with them. Having lived that bit of excitement, Jerry scanned the houses and rechecked the address in his pocket for Professor William Danvers, a very long-lived professor trained in anthropology, history, mythology and archaeology as well as bring very adept and knowledgible in the mystical arts. His wife, Ally, was a dead ringer for red-haired actress Kate Winslet; each of his daughters resembled a different pop princess. The man had even once taught sorcery at WizTech in Germany and Hogwarts in Scotland, once trying to encourage Justin to attend Hogwarts over WizTech. Jerry noticed the man's red brick home with the Old English porch lights and flowers in the windowsill. Nervous and unprepared, he hurried up the front steps and rapped on the green door a few times, stepping back a bit tense as he stood on one leg then another to wipe his shoes clean on the back of his pants.

"Jerry…" Danvers answered the door genially in his down time while wearing a smoking jacket.

"You know me?"

"Of, course I know you… Come on in…" He looked Jerry over. Jerry looked distressed. His face was unshaved, and his clothes looked as if he had slept in them. His face was pale, his clothes a bit worn. He was obviously depressed, a man crushed and depleted of his spirit. "Jerry, you don't look well. Is something up?"

"I can't find my family." Jerry wandered in to the front hall depressed, distraught and empty. "I woke up yesterday morning, and Theresa, Alex, Justin and Max were gone, the shop closed up and deserted, my non-magic friends don't know who I am…. I can't find any trace of my family, and no one knows who I am much less recalls a Russo family ever living on Waverly Place. No one knows who I am! It's as if everything in the last twenty years of my life never happened." Jerry paused trying to think as Danvers guided him to sit. Jerry sat on a loveseat in the parlor. "You're the only magic person I can find without my powers. I don't know what happened." Ally gave him some tea.

"I mean…" Jerry continued. "If my marriage and kids ceased to exist, I should have got the magic powers back I had before I married Theresa!" He sipped his tea. "If I don't have them, then… they should exist somewhere, but where?"

"Sounds like a very powerful spell…" Ally commented very acknowledged with the subject as the daughter of demi-gods.

"Could Alex or Justin have done something?" Danvers enquired with that regal British accent. "They haven't been in school. Neither was Miss Finkle for that matter."

"I checked with Harper's parents." Jerry started feeling a bit whole again but very depressed. He rose from the loveseat but to sit down again elsewhere. "They didn't know me and denied ever having a daughter."

"A very powerful spell!" Ally commented.

"This is disturbing…" Danvers offered Jerry a watercress sandwich from a silver plate. He looked as if he'd not eaten in days. Jerry took it and hungrily wolfed it down then took another. "Neither Justin or Alex together or alone would have the power to reshape reality much less time or space. Something… some force… must have helped them."

"Jerry…" Ally hovered over the distraught father in the big leather seat. "Would you like it if I prepared for you a nice hot meal?"

"I'd like that…" Jerry felt warm and accepted here. "Thank you very much."

"Jerry…" Professor Danvers looked briefly to his wife heading to the kitchen and turned back to Jerry. "Jerry, what was the last thing you recall before everyone vanished?"

"Well…" Jerry thought back to that last time he saw his family. "It was basically the same regular night. We closed the shop at eight as usual, had dinner, I punished Alex again, prepared their wizard lesson… just basically the same old, same old…" Ally had emerged from the kitchen by now with a steaming plate with a silver cover carried on a dinner tray with a glass of wine. She placed it on the round table in the center of the room and removed the cover to reveal a nice dinner of fish and rice, baked eggplant, creamed yams with butter and an English muffin. Jerry perked up a bit to see her having made the effort for him.

"That Finkle girl…" Danvers thought internally with his eyes studiously studying the situation as Jerry took the plate. "She's staying with you now, right, Jerry?"

"Yes, yes, she is…" Jerry spooned the fish and rice to his mouth. It tasted so wonderful. The fish melted in his mouth, the rice contained the taste of the fish. "Oh, that is wonderful." He thanked Ally. "Thank you, thank you very much…" Ally shined to see him so happy. She liked making her husband happy, but now she had a chance to make another man happy.

"Could Miss Harper have found an errant spell book and tried something?" Danvers speculated.

"No, no…" Jerry tried the fish and rice with a bit of the yams on the roll. "Harper's not a wizard."

"All human beings have the potential for magic, Jerry…" The Professor reminded. "Some of us are just more inclined to it." He sipped his after-dinner liquor a bit and placed it down. "Whatever happened… it would have to be something else. A spell of this magnitude… to erase your family, remove all memories of them, excise their existence from the realm of the mortal world and effect reality within a finite level…. That would involve a very powerful spell. A powerful spell indeed."

"I don't think even I'm capable of a spell like that…" Jerry sipped the wine with his meal as Ally took his plate. His face was regaining its color, his body was warm again and he was feeling good again.

"Jerry…" Danvers looked over to him and shared his sherry straight from the bottle. "Stay here tonight as my guest. In the morning, I'll go with you to your shop, and I'll help you get to the bottom of this… conundrum. If there's a solution there, I, or someone I know, will find it!"


	4. Chapter 4

4

Once upon a time, the Waverly Street Sub Station had seen better times. Today, the windows were boarded up, the entrance was sealed off and the windows under the glass were dingy with what seemed to be years of weathered grime. The colors were faded, paint chips were peeling around the entrance way and the aura of a haunted shop pervaded the barely traveled walkway. As Professor Danvers approached, the chains sealing the doors leading inside suddenly unlocked and chimed apart to the street to his feet. Jerry looked around the street to see if anyone noticed. If anyone did, they did not react at all. Danvers was very active with his sorcery. He did not believe in wands. A gesture of his hand, a raise of his eyebrow or a tug of his ear, and the world around him graciously accepted his will.

Inside the sub shop, the two gentlemen entered. The air of the sub shop was dead with flickers of dust illuminated by sunlight streaming through the boarded up windows. The floor was dingy and dusty with trash and debris with dark spots of grunge here and there. The booths were filled with cobwebs, the stools faded and deteriorated with age. The metal fixtures were stained and old, almost dark tan in color. The kitchen beyond them looked as dark and foreboding as a deserted hospital morgue.

"Jerry," Danvers turned up an old menu on the floor with his foot. "If I had not visited this place a mere month ago, I would not believe it. No one has been here in over a year."

"Any ideas, yet…"

"Not yet, but first things first…" Danvers' feet scraped thick dust from the floor as he lifted his head to the web-covered ceiling. "I call upon the watchtowers of the North…" His British accent enchanted with a display of his power. "Hephaestus of Olympus, Visvakarma of Nirvana, Kovas of Buyun and Ptah of the Afterlife… Artisan-gods all, lend me your mighty power…" The air started flowing; the lights starting to flickering. "Help me, your loyal servant, restore this place… Allow this place shine once more!!!" He directed his bare hand to the ceiling as the lights snapped on, and dancing wisps of air caught and dusted the walls and ceiling. Jerry's heart pulsed with excitement. His eyes filled with tears of joy. He couldn't see all of it. Something dusted the place with a mighty brush, metal starting lighting up with a gleam and the floor started to move and breath as it was alive. It breathed and giggled around him as the dirt flaked away and blew away everywhere but where was standing, but once he reached a clean area, then even his former spot cleaned itself. The stools seemed to gasp to attention, tiny threads reweaving themselves and becoming whole. In the kitchen area beyond the counter, the lights flashed on, the metal fixtures creaking and groaning with life, sparkling and shining in the light once more. Every tile tweaked with fairy magic, squeaking and shuddering from the animate water nozzle spraying the happy kitchen clean. Danvers walked through it all as if he was conducting traffic. Guiding the moving tables and chairs into place, showing booth cushions where to land and coaxing lights to flick on like flowers coming to life. Jerry was humbled and ecstatic as the boards on the windows fell away and bathed the place with bright sunlight. Once the cacophony of light, squeaks and sparkles and moving air was over, he felt a rush of happiness and realized that if anyone could find his family, Professor Danvers could do it!

"Now that was magic!!!" He cheered him on excitedly.

"Of course, it was…" Danvers reacted as if it was all quite ordinary. "Now all you little pixies," He looked to things only he could see. "If you do just a good a job upstairs, I'll reward you all with toys and gifts."

Jerry heard tiny squeaks, giggling childlike laughter, bells and whistles dancing across the floor to the spiral staircase heading upstairs. It sounded like an invisible band of tiny little kids having fun around his ankles. Up in the loft, pots and pans were jumping back on to their kitchen nooks, giggling wisps of smoke skated and laughed as they polished the cabinets to restore them to their original states. A large will-o-the-wisp was spinning in the center of the deserted room gathering up the dust and dirt, turning the empty room into a barren studio apartment. Happy hysterical giggles came from inside the cabinets popping open in sequence like the lids on the top of a huge pipe organ to the tune of blissful spirits. There was still no furniture, but the lights were finally working and the small cyclone had gathered up the walls to collect the cobwebs. Jerry looked content as well as impressed. He never knew Danvers was so powerful.

"This place has never been this clean!" He chuckled.

"Watch your step, Jerry." Danvers led the way as he looked through the place once then twice then jerked his head up to a sound on the second floor. It sounded as if the pixies and fairies had scared someone. He hastened to speak to that person, racing up to the third floor and advancing a few feet before stopping. The bedroom doors were popping open and shut, but it wasn't the Earth spirits doing it. They were two busy fixing the walls and cleaning. He held Jerry back with his left hand and motioned with his right to the female apparition terrified of the fairies flying through the place. She was backed up to the bathroom door concealing a roaring whirlwind.

"That's her…" Jerry was upset. "Who are you? What did you…" Danvers gestured to him to stop. In life, the woman had been very beautiful; tall with long brown hair and glistening blue eyes. Statuesque but slender, poised and gracious, she looked to the wild energies around her then to the men before her.

"Do not be alarmed, dear lady…" Danvers had encountered many earthbound spirits before. "We do not wish to harm you, but why do you still tread these walls?" Her ethereal lips began speaking, but Jerry heard nothing. This ghost was almost as real as any living person, but she was transparent and immaterial, still an inexperienced apparition phasing in and out of the Earthly realm.

"What she's saying?"

"She says she's confused as well." Danvers relayed the message. "She can't find her children either. She doesn't know why she's bound here nor how she came to be here." He looked back to her. "My lovely lady, introduce yourself… give me your name that I may help you find your children and help you to cross over…" The mystical professor inquired, listened clairvoyantly and tried to perceive her words.

"Sue… No, that's not right…" He heard her voice in his head. "Susan! Susan… Stuart? Oh, Stewart… Susan Stewart! I am very glad to meet you Miss Stewart. May I say… you are the most gracious and lovely apparition I have ever had the honor of meeting!" Susan's apparition lit up to a point she was almost fully tangible.

"Oh brother…" Jerry rolled his eyes.

"Well, Jerry, graciousness still applies to anyone no matter how deceased they may be!" He looked back and realized she was gone. Whether she was offended by Jerry or not, he knew she was still around. Jerry had wandered into his bedroom and sat down on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands. The room was empty, the few pieces of furniture were immaculate, but the room was restored and cleaned.

"Jerry…" Danvers came into the room. "If you will allow me to speculate, I think what has happened here is a very powerful reality spell akin to the spells used for bringing mental desires to life. You take a young lady, like Alex, who is not terribly happy with her life, who wants to change it, make her life… better in her own eyes."

"That doesn't help me find my family." Jerry spoke in a frustrated drawn old tone.

"No, it doesn't…" Danvers's shoes tapped across the wood floor as he thought. "You know, Jerry, several years ago, a young student of mine took it upon himself to go back in time and prevent the sinking of the Titanic, radically altering the present as a result, causing differences in censuses, affecting presidential politics, warping atmospheric conditions and in a sense, altering reality as we knew it. After things were corrected, I suggested to the Wizard Council that we have a failsafe artifact that detected mystical disruptions in reality and where they occurred. Whatever occurred to you seems have centered solely on your life and the people around you and has not affected the world as a whole."

"That artifact…" Jerry lifted his head. "It would detect wherever Theresa and the kids popped up in the world and affected reality around them."

"Yes, it would…." William Danvers frustratedly rubbed his head. "If the Wizard Council ever got around to creating such an artifact…." He paused disgustedly. "You see, about that time they had trouble with a warlock named Thomas Riddle, and by time they were through with him, they forgot all about it!"

"That doesn't help me at all…"

"No, it doesn't, but…" Danvers roused his spirits. "But if we can find dear Miss Stewart's children, the path could lead directly for your kids."

"Miley, speed it up…" In a beach house in Malibu, California, Robby Ray Stewart checked his watch. "You have to be there in thirty minutes; you know the traffic at this hour!"

"I left my wand down here." Miley came hurrying down the stairs, took her wand off the kitchen counter and circled it around her head. Sitting on the sofa, Lily loved watching this scene. The air around her best friend started sparkling and Miley's hair started turning from brown to golden blonde as a streak of lights like fireworks danced around her and turned her from ordinary high school girl Miley Stewart to Hannah Montana, teenage pop star. What belonged to Miley seemed to fade away as the colors that was Hannah started rising to the surface. Her blue jeans seemed to melt away from her legs as her skirt dropped down to her knees. Her blouse started breaking out in colors as the lights floating around her bonded into the form of glitter on her clothes. It was almost like watching a mere mortal girl turn into a young immortal.

"Ready, Lily?" Miley sounded a bit different as Hannah Montana.

"Ready!!!" Lily now surrendered herself to the magic. Sparkling light around her, Lily felt herself changing and her clothing moving and reshaping on her body. She felt the fabric moving and reshaping on her shin, the shape and texture of her t-shirt becoming silver, her hair turning neon green as young groupie Lola Luvnagle, the best friend of Hannah Montana.

"I taught her well." Theresa shined on her baby girl.

"Yeah…" Robby stood with his arms folded. "Creeps me out every time I see it." He looked to his wife. "Why did I marry a woman who knew magic?" Theresa kissed him and grinned ear-to-ear at him.


	5. Chapter 5

5

Lily did not get to be with Miley every time she had a Hannah thing. There was just some places like movie sets with tight security or secure commercial promotions that Lily could not go to, but she was not wanting to spend a night alone. This was one of those nights she wished her relationship with Jackson was real and not just in her head. After thinking it through, she decided she had to be the dominate one in their friendship and take the upper hand for him to take her out for pizza, and there was only one way this was going to work… by lying through her teeth.

"Are you sure we're supposed to meet Miley here?" Jackson was bored. He'd been in the Mister Pizza restaurant for over an hour sitting in a booth with Lily staring dreamily at him with that romantic gaze transfixed on him. They shared a large five topping pizza with spaghetti and drinks, talked about school and the weather and Hannah Montana and everything else. The whole time Lily saw herself being held in Jackson's arms and kissing him over and over and over, but soon… he was going to figure out he'd been tricked into a date.

"Yep…" Lily beamed happily. "She distinctly said to meet her here and have a pizza and sodas until she got here." There was a loud roar of cheers from the back room. There was a private party going on back there. From where they sat, they could watch and count the number of people coming and going and every time the door opened, they saw every form of chicanery going on back there.

"I don't see Miley anywhere." Jackson looked around. "Maybe I better call her…" He took out his cell phone.

"No!!!" Lily stopped him before he realized the truth and rushed around the table to sit by his side. "She'll be here." Lily shined with a big smile as a girl in love with her best friend's big brother and sipped her soda. "Hey, Jackson, you know, I got an idea… why don't you lean back and put your arm around me… You know, so I don't accidentally fall out of the booth."

"Why would I do that?" He suddenly wised up. The restaurant, the pizza, the sodas… she had tricked him into taking her on a date! "Oh my god!! You tricked me into a date!!!"

"What?" Lily scoffed. "No, I didn't!"

"Yes, you did!!!"

"No, I didn't!"

"Yes, you did!!!"

"No, I didn't!"

"Yes, you did!!!"

"No, I didn't!"

"Yes, you did!!!" Jackson would have got up to go, but she was blocking his way out of the booth so he squirmed to get out from under the table. "I can't believe you did this!!!"

"Jackson, wait!!!" She stopped him from escaping as he sat back on the seat next to her. "Think of it like this, when you date me, I'm really, really happy, and when I'm really, really happy, Miley is really, really happy and not playing mean jokes on you… like putting dresses on all your action figures or reporting you to National Security as an illegal alien."

"I knew she did that!!!" Jackson was livid with rage. "She looked straight at me, and said she didn't do that!!!" He was getting more upset by the second. "Lily, tell me the truth! Are we really here to pick Miley up and take her home?"

"Well," Lily hesitated knowing she finally had him. "Yeah…" She lied again. "Let me call her and see what's keeping her." She grabbed her cell phone and left the booth, took a few steps and with a knowing grin, came back and took his cell phone as well to make sure he didn't check her story. Turning away again, she raced past the raucous sounds of the party in the back room and stood behind the plants around the entryway to the restrooms. She called Miley on the private Hannah line. Up in San Francisco, Miley was doing a series of pictures as Hannah Montana in Golden Gate Park for the San Francisco Tourism Bureau. Among the other celebs on the shoot were Reese Witherspoon, Hugh Jackman, Mark Ruffalo, Kari Byron, Jamie Hyneman and Adam Savage. Pictures ranged from Alcatraz, Knob Hill, Golden Gate Park and many of the other local landmarks. In a blue tent used as her dressing room, Hannah returned from getting photographed with Zac Efron. She heard her phone and checked the caller ID before answering.

"Lily… hey!" She was in good mood. "Sorry you couldn't come, but I did get Zac Efron's autograph for you."

"Miley, I need help!!!" Lily looked around once and then entered the ladies room for privacy. "I lied to Jackson to get him to take me out, and now he's got me pushed into a corner. I need you right here to prove I'm not lying to him."

"What?" Hannah reacted out of disbelief. She noticed her father lifting the flap on the tent and entering. "Look, Lily, I'm about five hours away. I can't get there that fast. Just tell him the truth!"

"I can't, Miley…" Lily's eyes were filling with tears. "If he knows I lied to him, he won't want to marry me and let me be the mommy to his babies!!!"

Miley felt her stomach reeling and her dinner about to come up. Her father looked at her and instinctively knew the conversation involved her brother.

"What do you want me to do?" Hannah asked her. "Erase Jackson's memories? I'm not allowed to do that anymore since the Lindsay Lohan incident." She had been in trouble a lot for using magic on her brother.

"Miley…" Lily was pleading as she checked the empty stalls and paced around the bathroom. "Please… I know for a fact you can use magic to travel through the phone. You do it all the time!"

"Fine!!!" Hannah surrendered with a long agonizing moan. "But you are so going to owe me!!"

"Thank you!" Lily lit up with that bright kewpie doll voice. Hannah meanwhile rolled her eyes, cursed a few times under her breath and looked up to her father with the fake mustache and that dark fedora and jacket.

"What's the problem, bud? Did Oliver look at Megan Fox?" He promised his girl. "If he did, I know guys who can get rid of him like that!" He snapped his fingers.

"Dad…" Hannah took a tired breath and exhaled deeply. "Lily needs me. I have to use magic." She looked sorry and apologetic.

"Oh sweet niblets… Why did I marry a woman who knew magic?" Robby Ray sighed and rolled his eyes a bit. "Okay, bud… I'll finish things up on this end and head home on my own. You just help your friend." He hugged her, and she squeezed him back with a kiss.

"Thanks, dad…" Hannah kissed him, took her wand and started invoking a spell with a swish and flip of it in the air. "_Pepsi and Fresca and slow gin fizz, take me to where Lily is…_" The air around her flashed as if someone had taken a picture of her, but when it went away, she was standing in the bathroom at the Mister Pizza restaurant not far from her house. Lily noticed the flash in the empty room reflected in the restroom mirror and whirled around to hug Hannah.

"Thank you - Thank you -Thank you -Thank you…" Lily started hugging her.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah…" Hannah checked herself in the mirror. "Let's get this over with." She started leaving the restroom just as someone left the party in the back room right next door to them. Hannah pulled open the ladies room door to head out, turned her gaze to look up and recognized the party girl coming toward her. It was Michayla!!!

"Hannah Montana!!!"

"Sweet niblets!!!" Hannah shrieked and pushed Lily back into the ladies room, pulling the door shut and locking it. The brunette pop diva started going nuts pounding and pulling on the door, kicking it with her boot and screaming at the blonde pop diva trapped in the room.

"Get out here, Hannah!!!" Michayla pounded, screamed and pulled at the door of the ladies room. "I heard what you said about me on Letterman! I'm going to pull out every single dark root on that so-called blonde head of yours!!!" She went nuts on the door, putting her foot to the wall and trying to force it open. "Demi!! Selena!!! Get over here!" Michayla screamed. "I got Hannah Montana trapped in the bathroom!!!"

Inside the bathroom, he head pressed to the door, Hannah groaned, hissed under her breath and turned back to Lily as if she were possessed. Outside the restroom, Michayla was screaming and pounding to get in to beat her up. It was high school all over again. Another psycho brunette to take down Miley. She looked to Lily angry and frustrated. Lily sunk a bit in morale as well.

"Thanks a lot, Lily!!!"

"I'm sorry."

"I know you're in there, Hannah!!!" Michayla's psychotic voice came through the door. "If even half of those rumors I heard on "Ellen" came from you, you'll be eating through a tube for months!!!" She started going psycho on the door again. "Unlock-that-door!!! No one tells the world I practice witchcraft and gets away with it!!!"

"Call Jackson…" Hannah had a thought. "I'll send us both through the line!!!" Lily then revealed the bad news. She had Jackson's phone!!! Hannah started freaking out. She was trapped in the bathroom by a psychopath!!!

"Unlock that door!!!" Michayla was screaming as Demi Lovato tried her hand at picking the lock. Alyson Stoner and Megan Fox were there as well from the party. The Sprouse Twins wondered about the fracas and came to check it out along with several of their non-celebrity friends. Dylan pulled out his picture phone to catch a classic Michayla-Hannah fight on video for YouTube. The pizza place employees were taping the whole thing for their website.

"Wait…" In the restroom, Lily had an idea and whispered to Hannah. "She's looking for Hannah Montana! Turn yourself back into Miley!!!"

"Brilliant!!!" Hannah whipped out her wand.

"Unlock that door, Montana!!!" Michayla kicked and pounded on the door as she tried pulling the pins out of the hinges. Demi Lovato had her ear to the door as she tried to pick the lock with a straightened paper clip. As she tried triggering the tumblers, the door unlocked and Lily poked her head out to Michayla. Miley grinned around the opening as well.

"Oh my god…" Miley grinned quite safe. "It's Michayla! Hi, Michayla, was that that you pounding on that door?" She grinned harmlessly.

"I know you…" Michayla recalled her as Jake Ryan's old girlfriend. "You go to my school, right?"

"Why yes. Yes, I do."

"Is Hannah Montana in there?"

"Why… yes. Yes, she is." Miley pushed Lily ahead of her then whispered in her ear. "Let's get Jackson and get out of here!" Behind her, Michayla and her friends stormed the restroom kicking open the stalls and searching it for the blonde pop star. Seven stalls empty including the handicapped stall, Michayla lifted herself to the window at ceiling level and tried looking out. It was too small for a person and it had bars on it.

"She's not in here!" Tawni Hart was one of the stars of "That's So Random," a syndicated teenage sketch show. "Are you sure you saw Hannah Montana?"

"I know I saw her!!!" Michayla was insistent. "The only way she could have gotten out of here is if Miley Stewart smuggled her out in her bra or in the back pocket of her jeans!!!" She stomped her foot disgustedly. "The only thing that makes any sense would be of Miley and Hannah were… Oh my god!!!! Why didn't I ever see that before?!!!!"


	6. Chapter 6

6

Miley and Lily spent the night partying for being so smart and conning Michayla. Miley told the story to her parents, but while Robby showed pride in her for being clever, Theresa showed disapproval in letting her get backed into such a predicament. After Miley imitated Michayla's stunned look for what was the hundredth time, Lily stayed the night with Miley… even though she was more obsessed with finding out what Jackson wore to bed…

"I never figured you to be a boxers man."

"Out of my room, psycho girl!" Jackson pushed her out of the room so he could get some sleep. Once in the room, Lily sighed deeply as a girl in love.

"He's got a pet name for me already!" She was going to make him love her one way or another.

"Lily!!!"

In the morning, it was business as usual. Miley and Lily rushed to shower before Jackson, there was a bit of magic to conjure the best outfits to wear to school out of the fashion catalog and then a nice breakfast with Jackson climbing outside his bedroom window on a rope he had conjured to get past Lily downstairs in his house. Miley then headed to school herself with Oliver and Lily with her. They had first period biology together with Miss Kunkle, and then Lily left them as Miley and Oliver had gym glass with Coach Grey. Third period rolled around and Miley was by herself in Mr. Musso's math class as Lily and Oliver headed to French class with Miss Osment. They were altogether again for Fourth Period Study Hall in the auditorium with Miss Kunkle. It was the longest period of the day because it lasted four thirty minute lunch intervals; each one for the freshmen, another for the sophomores, another for the junior classmen and the last for the seniors, but not necessarily in that order. Miley and Lily's class had the first lunch block and they always met Oliver there, but as they made their way, their route was waylaid by Michayla standing in front of the bookstore waiting for them to come by.

"Hey, Stewart…" She looked as if she had a secret. "Remember me?"

"Michayla…" Miley tensed up, looked at Lily and back again. "Yeah, we hung out a night after the Jake Ryan incident…"

"Yeah, that's right…" The cute brunette pop star took Miley aside by placing her arm around her like a friend. "And we ran into each other last night at Mister Pizza… You know, when I thought I had trapped Hannah Montana in the ladies room…"

"Yeah…" Miley was disgusted by this chummy friend-like conversation. "Well, if you will excuse me…" She tried to rejoin Lily.

"Weird thing, Stewart…" Michayla pulled Miley back. "You see, when I finally got inside, no Hannah Montana."

"I guess you were mistaken…." Miley tried to pull away but Michayla pulled her back.

"I don't think so…" The brunette diva looked into Miley's big blue azure eyes. "You know… I was searching the Internet last night, and it seems… guess what? No one really knows just where in Tennessee Hannah Montana comes from. You know Tennessee, Stewart? That's where you come from?"

"Where you going with this, demon girl?" Miley faced off with her. It was that moment that Michayla heard that insult that she knew she was right! Hannah had called her "demon girl" at least three times in the press.

"That's just it, Stewart." Michayla reacted with a grin. "No one knows anything about Hannah's private life, almost as if she has some kind of… secret identity?" She watched Miley's reaction. Lily dropped her jaw in shock unable to speak.

"Psycho girl say what?"

"A blonde wig…" Michayla teased and adjusted Miley's long brown hair. "Some make-up… some of those god-awful Hannah dresses… You could pass as Hannah's twin sister!" Miley looked to Lily and started to scoff at the notion.

"You think…" Miley chuckled a bit. "You actually think… You think I'm Hannah Montana?"

"You said it… I didn't."

"I am not Hannah Montana…" Miley insisted.

"Yeah, you're right…" Michayla giggled and turned Miley back to Lily. "You couldn't possibly be Hannah Montana. I mean… the stress, the tricks, the stunts and all that hard work to try and pull off a stunt like that would be impossible!!!"

"Yes, it would!!!" Miley chuckled.

"I mean…" Michayla kept lulling Miley into a false sense of security. "It'd be like Ashley Tisdale trying to be Britney Spears. There would be no way!"

"No way at all!"

They started laughing together as if they were friends. Lily joined in with the forced camaraderie.

"You know…" Michayla grinned knowingly at Miley. "I wish I could have seen Jake Ryan's face when he learned you were Hannah Montana."

"Well…" Miley pretended to be friends with her. "At least he didn't faint like Oliver!!!" Miley faked a laugh and went on her way to join Lily, and Michayla lit up after realizing she was right! Miley did a double take and snapped back.

"Rosemary's baby say what?"

"Just proving a theory, Stewart…" Michayla grinned with her mouth hanging open. "Outing your secret identity to the world is the best revenge I could ever have thought of. When the tabloids get a hold of this, you'll wish I had dealt with you myself." She cackled with a laugh, turned on her heel and headed to lunch. Miley meanwhile just stood there in the hall. Frozen in place, Miley became like a Miley mannequin. Lily looked at her blue eyes, waved her hand in front of Miley's face to get a reaction and tried shaking her.

"Miley…" Lily shook her by the shoulder. "Miley…"

"Lily…" Miley saw her career passing before her eyes.

"I got you…" Lily took her best friend delicately by the hand and led her toward the ladies room near them through the swinging door, around the privacy wall and toward the row of sinks and room length mirror. "Come on… come on…"

"Lily…" Miley was in shock.

"Oh god… oh god… oh god…" Lily paced round in a circle. "What are we going to do? This is like beyond horrible! What are we going to do?" Fortunately, the room was empty, but then it was always empty during class time, and when the Junior Classmen had their lunch, they used the restrooms outside the cafeteria in the gym lobby. This opportunity gave them a lot of privacy. "Miley, what are you going to do?!"

"I don't know!"

"Well, you better think of something!" Lily developed an attitude to stir some urgency into her best friend. "Because unless you can whip up another Hannah Montana, Michayla is going to out you as Hannah Montana!" Miley heard her and suddenly had an idea.

"I knew this couldn't last…" Lily gave up hope. "I so liked being the only one in school… well, besides Jackson and Oliver… to know the secret. Now, everybody's going to know the truth!"

"I don't think anyone is going to believe her." Miley responded with a plan.

"What?" Lily now had hope again.

"I so love being a wizard for things like this…" She pulled her wand out and directed it to Lily. "_In order to keep from being outed as Hannah_," She invoked an incantation. "_I'm turning you into Hannah Montana_!!"

"Wait…" Lily reacted a bit. "You're turning me into… Oh god!!!" She doubled over in pain as her face and body started warping and distorting. Her bones were changing in shape, her size and frame were being forced to become a bit smaller and slender. It felt as if her body had gone to war with her. The shape of her skull felt as if it were reshaping and moving around under her skin being stretched or compacted. Her clothing fell a bit loose, her legs became weak, Lily fought to stay awake from the pain as her ribs seemed to drop lower and higher at the same time. Every nerve ending was exploding, her skin was moving and extending, bones were shifting and resettling… parts of her body expanded or contracted. Her eyes felt as if they were falling out of her head. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably, but all Miley could do watch the transformation and back away from the process and hope Lily survived the transformation. Her best friend was groaning in pain, nearly screaming from the torture of her body reshaping itself. Trying to keep from blacking out, she clutching at the floor, convulsing as her body reacted from the spell… Gradually, the pain started subsiding… Her clothing had changed as well.

"Lily?" Miley looked down at her. "Lily???"

Lily grabbed the top of the sink and started pulling herself up to the mirror. Her breath racing, her heart pumping, she felt as if she was living through a scene in "Dr. Jekyll and Mister Hyde," but as her eyes reached level with her reflection, she saw herself with golden blonde hair and her face reshaped to resemble Miley. Her mouth dropping open, her eyes widened with surprise, she lifted her hands to her face, her fingertips stroking her hew face.

"Oh my god…" Her voice had changed. It now had a Tennessee accent. Only her mind remained the same as it processed what she was seeing. "Oh my god… I'm… I'm…."

"Hannah Montana." Miley draped her arm around her friend turned clone. "Okay, this is what we're going to do. I'll go into the cafeteria first, and then you'll come in a few minutes later to say hi, and…"

"I love this body!!!" As Hannah, Lily was more slender, a bit smaller and even more shapely than she was before. Her hands slide down over her abdomen and hips. "Wait till Jackson sees me now!!!" She giggled like a younger schoolgirl.

"Psycho girl number two say what?" Slipping her wand away, Miley reacted and swung to the sink to spew forward whatever was in her stomach. Her warm stomach contents spewing through the fingers of her hand, she turned the water on to clean her hand and face and rinse her mouth out from the faucet. Although she was now Hannah, her best friend still had a lot of Lily Truscott in her.

"Don't… even… think it!!!" Miley looked up again.

"Sorry." Lily pouted as Hannah.

"Now, like I said…" Miley fussed and adjusted Lily's look as her twin sister. "I go in the cafeteria and deny their claims, and then you come in and back me up. Oh… and stopping hiking up my chest!!"

"But I just got them…" Lily was very proud of her new body.

"Stop it!!!" Miley shot her a look, held her finger at her to keep Lily in her control. A deep breath, she stepped from the ladies room and headed for the cafeteria where Michayla would be with everyone else. The fifty by seventy-five square foot room was full of over fifty tables, each of them populated by her classmates, mostly by clique or interest or some other bond of friendship. Danny sat with his friends from the audio-visual club, two of the football players sat with someone from the basketball team and with an added crony, three over-achievers sat together and Amber Addison and Ashley Dewitt, the two princesses of Seaside High School sat alone; they were so vicious that everyone hated their guts. Only Michayla sat alone and she preferred it that way.

"Hey, everyone!!!" Michayla saw Miley and spoke up, standing on her chair to get everyone's attention. "I've got a big announcement to make."

"We all get free tickets to your next concert?" Amber Addison stood up grinning excitedly.

"Uh… no…"

"You and Joe Jonas are now dating?" Nikki Bobbitt asked.

"What? No, that's not it."

"They're finally doing another _Haunted High School_ sequel?" Lisa Cyrus asked.

"They are?" Michayla reacted confused. "That's not it."

"You're filming your TV series here and we'll all get to be in it?" Oliver stood and guessed next.

"No!"

"You're pledging your undying love to me and will be my girlfriend???" Jimmy Constance was one of the most girl unlucky guys in the entire Junior Class.

"Stop that!!!" Michayla ordered a stop to the guessing. "Although, you are kind of cute, see me after biology…" She cleared her throat and looked back to Miley. "Now, who wants to know a little secret about Hannah Montana?"

Everyone in the cafeteria cheered in anticipation. Even though she had a plan, Miley fretted nervously and looked back searching for Lily as Hannah.

"Well, I know her real name." Michayla looked right to Miley. "Don't I, Miley… or should I say… Hannah!!!"

The entire room looked at Miley.

"Me…" Miley scoffed. "That's ridiculous. I'm not Hannah Montana!"

The entire room looked at Michayla.

"Of course, it's ridiculous!!!" Amber Addison stood up. "Stewart can't sing a lick!!"

"Not a lick!!" Ashley Dewitt echoed.

"No, I can't…" Miley claimed to save her identity. Everyone turned to look at her.

"Oh really…" Michayla spoke up as everyone turned to her. "How about the fact that both you and Hannah can both be connected to Jake Ryan!" The room started whispering. "And who else remembers the big Jackson-Hannah hoax where Miley's brother allegedly dated Hannah?" The room started whispering and speculating. Even Amber started believing it. She grabbed a novelty folder with Hannah's photo on it and compared it to Miley's real face. The likeness… those eyes… why didn't she ever notice it?!

"Look…" Miley chuckled a bit. "This is all very flattering… but I can prove I'm not Hannah Montana." She dashed into the hall looking for Lily. She was nowhere in sight.

"Sweet niblets!!!" Where was Lily as Hannah?!!

"Hey! Hey!!!" Oliver stood up in his seat to defend his girlfriend. "I have known and dated Miley a long time, and I know for a fact that there is no way she could possibly be Hannah Montana."

"Hey!" One of the school football players stood up. "Aren't you that god awful rapper Mike Stanley that follows Hannah around?" More of the room started whispering. Oliver slowly and quietly lowered to the floor and hid under his table. Michayla began smiling and giggling; she had ruined Hannah's secret identity; she'd never get another moment's peace.

"Oh my god!" Amber rolled her eyes. "And I bet Truscott's that annoying girl with all the stupid wigs!!"

"Wait a minute!" Miley was losing it. "Wait a minute!! I am not Hannah Montana, and I can prove it!!!"

"Oh yeah…" Michayla had done enough damage. She hopped off her chair to confront Miley. "Just how many Hannah concerts have you attended, Miley?" She faced her down. "Oh, and I do mean the one's where you were not on stage."

"Well…" Miley tried to think. This was worse than she thought. "There was…" Amber had dropped her jaw in shock as she looked to the entrance toward the school bookstore. One grinning happily and shaking her head excitedly at her carnage, Michayla whirled round and reacted with disbelief. The room had gotten quiet. Ashley was trying to catch her breath. Finally someone screamed it.

"It's Hannah Montana!!!!"

The whole room cheered and erupted with exploding giddy feelings of excitement. Coming up behind Miley, Hannah Montana finally appeared and entered the cafeteria, grinned and said hello to her fans, pausing to get her picture taken by picture phone and scribbling her name for fans pushing paper and pens to her. She grinned and enjoyed her celebrity status as she made her way to Miley.

"What kept you?" Miley snapped.

"Mr. Laritate wanted an autograph!!!" Hannah snapped back about the principal stopping her. Michayla meanwhile rolled around embarrassed and dropped back into her seat, burying her hands over her head.

"Miley…" Hannah spoke to Miley. "I just want to thank you for all the hard work you have done for my fan club." Hannah looked around to all the stunned students. "And I just want to say, you are my number one fan!!"

"Nice touch."

"Thank you." Hannah and Miley hugged to her friends snapping pictures of them together, and... so completely not the same person.

"Wait a minute!" Amber was rushing up. "Wait a minute… I know her too! I know her too!" She broke free of her classmates crowding her and bumped Miley aside. "Remember me, Miss Montana, from _Singing With The Stars_?"

"And you are?" Hannah dissed her, and Amber reacted stunned; she tried catching her breath. A nice wave good-bye and Hannah touched and thanked a few fans, blowing a kiss to Oliver, Jimmy and a few others on the way back out of the room. Miley was feeling good. A lot of people wanted to be her friend now as she rejoined Oliver at their usual table. Michayla was starting to hate public school as she was teased for thinking Miley was Hannah, she was getting pummeled and showered with popcorn, French fries and anything else small enough to fly through the air. Giving Oliver a quick kiss in the roar of excitement, Miley hurried to the door near the gym and out to insure Lily could get away to be changed back.

"That was so great!!!" Miley raced out into the hall with her wand at the ready. "You were perfect! We not only got Michayla, but we got Amber too! Lily…" She looked round. "Lily?" She didn't see her. "Sweet niblets!!!" She had lost her again.

Upstairs in the Senior Hall, Jackson Stewart was at his locker. Honor student and straight-A student, he had worked hard to get the trust of his teachers. He helped grade papers, ran things off and was even president of the Science Club, Chess Club and the FCA. He was everything Justin Russo was at his school including a wizard. Able to move about the halls during class time, it was not unusual to see him about running errands for Miss Kunkle the biology teacher or carrying out duties as President of the Student Council. Out the corner of his eye, someone came up from the stairs to the cafeteria, adjusted her long golden blonde hair and hiked up her boobs.

"Hey, Jackson…" Lily presented her new body to Jackson.

"Mile… Hannah Montana?!!!" He reacted and realized who she was and in school of all places!!! Who else but Miley would do something so stupid? He had to do something before anyone saw her! He looked around, pulled open the janitor's closet and pushed the person he thought was his sister into it to confront her in private. Another look around, he pulled the door closed behind him and pulled the light on over his head.

"Miley, what the heck were you thinking?" He confronted her. "Appearing as Hannah in school? That's not how you keep a secret identity secret!!!"

"Hey, Jackson…" Hannah was grinning at him with her hands gliding down over the front of her dress. "How do you like me know?"

"What?!" Jackson didn't understand. "What are you…" Hannah suddenly grabbed him and pressed her lips to his, her body pressed to his and her arms wrapped around his shoulders. He couldn't breath!! She was smothering him. His hands started fighting to pull her off, but that little body was way too strong. He grabbed the broom he saw and tried hitting her with it. How the heck was she breathing?!!!

"Lily? Lily?…" Out in the hall, Miley came up looking for her best friend running loose with her body. If Lily ran off to the mall to exploit looking like her, she was going to kill her, but gradually she heard the scuffling and fighting from the janitor's closet, noticed her brother's locker door hanging open and put two and two together. The mere thought of it made her almost vomit again.

"Oh god…" She reached extremely apprehensive for the door handle, turned it and pulled the door open. Jackson quickly came crawling out in to the empty corridor with his shirt pulled off his body, and his chest and face covered in lipstick. Breathing heavily, he reached the lockers on the other side of the hall and held up two school rulers in the shape of a cross at his attacker. Miley looked in at Lily as Hannah looking guilty in the bottom of the closet.

"What did you do?" She asked disgustedly.

"Nothing…" Hannah stood up adjusting her blouse and top. "You didn't give me a chance!"

"Miley?" Jackson was hysterically repulsed by having his sister affectionately attack him. "Hannah?! What's going on here?!"

"Jackson, look…" Miley relented and decided to confess. "Michayla tried to out me as Hannah, and the only thing I could think of was to turn Lily into Hannah to discredit her."

"Lily!" Jackson kept his makeshift crucifix aimed at her.

"Was it as good for you as it was for me?" Hannah stared at him with so much love.

"That's it!" Miley whipped her wand out. "I'm changing you back."

"No, Miley, not yet!! That transformation really hurt! At least, let me keep the…" Too late, the pain started again and Lily was grabbing the floor again screaming and yelling in pain as her skin, tissue and bones were altered to match her original body.

"Oh… my… lord…" Jackson made a face to be right across from it watching it. "I'm going to be having nightmares for weeks…."


	7. Chapter 7

7

After school, Miley, Lily and Oliver headed for the beach near Miley's house. Jackson was there already with his surfboard and heading out to catch some waves. They hovered near Max Russo's snack shack where they got drinks, snacks and hung out with their friends at school. By time the tabloids got the Michayla story, it was rumored the brunette pop star was hallucinating Hannah Montana everywhere and had attacked one of her classmates. Her manager was fighting to kill the story, but Michayla was beating herself up over the whole thing. It all seemed so right, but there she was… Miley and Hannah side-by-side. There was no logical way for Miley to have deceived her! Meanwhile, Lily felt as if she'd had open-heart surgery. Her body still hurt after being transformed back.

"Now I know what it feels like when that guy turns into the Hulk." She was holding her arms up tight to her chest. "My ribs hurt…" Lily noticed Miley's brother going by their table. "Jackson, I need a hug…"

"No freaking way, psycho girl!!!" Miley's brother rushed down the gangway to the beach to catch another wave. Undeterred, Lily just sighed upon his body and stamina and dreamed of him holding her close. She sipped her cherry slurpee and turned to her best friend.

"Miley," Lily leaned in close to whisper. "When I learned you were a wizard, you said you'd give me anything I wanted."

"Sure, what will it be?"

"Just a wee little love spell to make Jackson love me unconditionally."

"Hell, no!"

"It was worth a shot…" Lily sipped her flavored drink. Oliver chuckled a bit, and shook his blue berry drink, allowing Miley to sip it as they stared upon each other in love. Lily looked upon their romance and wished she had a relationship like theirs with Jackson. Her unrequited pangs for true love were ringing identically like that of Harper Finkle for Justin Russo from Waverly Place.

"Excuse me…" Jerry Russo from New York City had been scouting the beach for the last two days and came up upon them. "Do any of you recognize the kids in this photo?"

"Nope."

"Uh-uh…"

"Not really."

"Thanks anyway…" Jerry groaned a bit depressed and postured defeatedly. Miley, Lily and Oliver looked amongst themselves, rose and continued on their way to the boardwalk as Jerry scanned the area again and once more. All he was getting was a lot of sun. Wiping his brow, adjusting his sunglasses and taking a deep breath, he noticed the snack hut with hotdogs cooking, a back grill with hamburgers simmering and several snack bags. Careful with his Cash Cab money, he was more interested in the bottles of cold water. "Excuse me…" He rapped on the counter. "Can I get a bottle of water?"

"That will be five bucks, old man…" Max Russo popped up reaching for the cash.

"Max!!!!!!" Jerry screamed excitedly, grabbed his son and lurched him out like a rag doll crying hysterically happy and hugging his son. Max was reacting shocked. Who was this guy? Why was he grabbing him? What was going on here?!!!

"What's going on here?" Max screamed. "Let me go! This isn't funny!! Someone get this guy off me!!"

"Max, I missed you so much!"

"Get off me old man!!!" Max screamed. "I ain't your kid!!!"

"Max, please!!!" Jerry placed Max down on the counter and forced his hand open. "You got to remember me!!!" He dropped a clear stone in his son's hand and wrapped his fingers around it. Max suddenly stopped screaming and dropped into a subtle trance. Vacationers and Malibu natives watched at the disturbance; two men grabbing Jerry and forcing him to the ground as two beach patrol officers came running to save Max. They pulled out handcuffs to arrest him…

"What?" Max shook off a spell and woke up. Where was he? He thought he was in a dream. "Dad, dad??"

"It's okay, he's my son!!!" Jerry was screaming as the cops tried arresting him. "He's my son!!! Max!!!"

"Dad?" Max reached around and searched for his wand to help his father, but he didn't have it. "Hey, let him go!!! That's my dad!" He jumped on the larger of the two officers and tried saving his dad. Things were getting confusing as the victim defended his attacker.

"He's my son!!"

"He is?"

"Yeah…." The small riot started calming and the crowd started dispersing. Max grinned embarrassed off the officer's back and the on-lookers started breaking up. One parent warned Jerry not to roughhouse his kid so much, and another rolled his eye embarrassed after knocking Jerry to the ground. Amidst the awkward situation and things returning to some semblance of normalcy. One of the officers warned Jerry again over carrying on with his kid in public so loudly and departed the scene. Jerry thanked him nervously, looked to Max happy to have found him and rushed to hug him. He had his youngest boy back! He found him!!!

"Max… Max…"

"Dad…" Max did not want to be hugged by his dad or have his hair mussed. "What are you doing in my dream?"

"This isn't a dream, Max…" Jerry was so happy his chest was about to burst. "This is real. You, your mother, Justin and Alex vanished from Waverly Place."

"We did?"

"Yeah…" Jerry looked back briefly to the shack. The original young merchant was looking around confused then noticed Jerry.

"Like I said, old man…" Rico DeVasquez popped up in the snack hut. "That will be five bucks…"

"I'll take two…" Jerry dropped another five and took another bottle. "You little shyster!"

"It didn't hurt when my mom said it, it still doesn't bother me." The young crook was well on his way to being a crime boss or used car salesman. Jerry turned away and gave Max a bottle of water to follow the boardwalk to the street.

"Max…" Jerry talked as he walked with his son and took a sip under this hot California sun. "This is very important. I need to know what happened the other night. What happened before you went to bed?"

"You mean, besides the noodle incident…"

"Besides the noodle incident…" He and Max reached the street and were in a parking lot of cars not far from beach houses and a small market off the highway.

"Not much…" Max was not dressed right for hot weather. He was still in the t-shirt and jeans he had slept in the other night. "I went straight to my room, fell asleep… Oh, I had a dream I was trapped in a tornado and the next thing I knew, I was here on the beach."

"Were your mother, brother and sister in this dream?"

"I don't know." Max still had the gem. "Dad, what's this all about?"

"This…." Jerry snatched the stone back. "…is a truth stone Professor Danvers enchanted for me. No matter how powerful the spell, it forces who ever has it to tell the truth. Even though your life was warped into that little crook back there, it helped force you to realize who you really were." Jerry followed the parking lot around the market to the small beach house he had rented while he was searching for his family in Malibu. "You know, if I didn't know better, I say this was a very powerful dream spell. One used to make someone's dreams come true."

"Like say… Alex?"

"Yeah, I'd say this has Alex written all over it." Jerry rolled open the back door of his rental home.


	8. Chapter 8

8

Jerry had his one of his children back and realized he was on the right track. He didn't get much info about Susan Stewart from the internet, but his magic contacts felt she once lived in Tennessee, but someone else's clairvoyance told him Tennessee was a dead end and he should had to the beaches in Malibu. For the last few days, he was starting to think he was on the wrong track, but then he found Max, and things started looking right. Where Max had landed, his family should be warped into one of the neighboring families. The problem was that there were twelve Stewart families in the Malibu phone directory, and while pretending to be tracing his genealogy, he learned none of them were related to a Susan Stewart who was deceased. There was a Sue Stewart in the first grade, and a Suzanne Stewart at Seaside High School, but not a Susan Stewart. Sending Max home to stay with Professor Danvers so he wouldn't miss school, Jerry realized whatever family he was looking for had to have an unlisted phone account. As he contemplated how to find this family, he stopped by the store to get some groceries. With Max back, his bank account was suddenly back in existence and his friends now knew him, but the spell was still in effect and hiding his wife and two other kids with Harper somewhere in a city of almost five billion people. Tossing a bag of pork rinds in his cart, he sighed and started heading to the cashier. His cart struck that of another shopper.

"I'm sorry…" Theresa Stewart guided him ahead.

"Thank you, very much…" Jerry shined to her and pressed on ahead to pay for his food. A second more, he made a face and his eyes rounded out of stunned surprise then spun around to his wife. "Theresa!!!!" He tried to grab and hug her.

"Whoa!!" Theresa dodged him and looked at him upset. She hated these mashers. "Watch it, mister! I got pepper spray!"

"Theresa?" Jerry reacted confused and realized he didn't want a situation like he had with Max. He had to improvise and hold back his excitement. "Theresa? It's me, Jerry! Jerry!" He looked at her. He wasn't getting through to her. "We… we… we went to school together!!!"

"We did?" She didn't recognize him. "Prove it…"

"Uh, uh…" Jerry tried thinking. "Well, your mother's name is Magdelena Larkin, she loves wrestling, you were born October 13, 1975, your father was always fixing the roof, you hated staying with your grandmother because you thought her house was haunted, your Uncle Ernesto's feet stink, your sister Maggie's kid is an idiot, you have a mole located on your…"

"You know about the mole?!!!!"

"Theresa…" Jerry reached into his pocket. "You gave me this!" He lied to trick her. He pulled out the truth stone and placed it in her hand. Confused and perplexed, Theresa took the stone forced in her hand and cynically held it up to her eye.

"Look, no disrespect, but I don't remember you, and… Jerry!!!" Her memory returned, and her eyes widened in surprise. Her true identity was rushing back to her as she jumped up on her husband and hugged him, kissing him, her arms wrapped around his shoulders and his hands on her waist and up to her chin. He was her husband, and she loved him very much.

"Jerry!" She kissed him. "Jerry…oh, but… what's going on here? Where am I? Is this another magic thing?" She turned from being happy and loving to annoyed and irritated. Jerry tugged her out of the way of the other listening shoppers.

"Yes…" Jerry confessed in the diaper aisle. "Theresa, you and the kids vanished from the shop five days ago, I've been looking for you endlessly ever since. I found Max yesterday, but I haven't been able to find Alex, Justin or Harper. I missed you so much."

"Oh, Jerry…" She hugged and kissed him again. "You won't believe this crazy dream I had. I dreamed I was married to Robby Ray Stewart."

"Stewart!!!" Jerry reacted upon hearing that name. "That ghost must have been his late wife! I forgot she had passed away; it was in all the papers back in the Eighties!!!" He started reacting as things fell together. "Everything fits! Stewart, Tennessee, Malibu… Theresa, does Robby Ray have kids?"

"Yes, a son and a daughter…"

"Justin and Alex!!!" Jerry's excitement was soaring. "Any friends?"

"Yes."

"Harper!!! The kids are merged with their lives!!" Jerry forgot about his groceries in his rush to get his kids back. He started pulling Theresa by the arm eager to have his family back.

"Jerry…" Theresa tugged her arm back once she cleared the store and stood outside the front entrance amidst people going in and out. "What's going on here?"

"Theresa," Jerry turned back to her. "Look, I think Alex or Justin… most likely Alex… invoked a very powerful dream spell that made their dreams come to life, causing you and the kids to get merged into this family, but…" He paused and realized something he hadn't figured out yet. "Why this family?" He didn't get that part. "Why would Alex want to be related to Robby Ray Stewart? She's not a fan of his." He looked to his wife reacting to the California wind tossing her hair. "Theresa, is there something special about them?"

"I don't know." His beautiful Hispanic wife adjusted her hair. "You know, I think I'm slowly forgetting everything…"

"Wait a second…" Jerry rushed into the store again past the registers and customers paying for their groceries. A clerk had found Theresa's purse in her cart, and he claimed it for her, giving a brief excuse they'd be back for the groceries even if they wouldn't be. With reality warped to match the dream, everything would still be changed right down to her checks and identification. Theresa saw him coming back.

"I got the address." He started walking, but Theresa had enough memories from her dream to recognize the Stewart family van. With the memories of her other life becoming a faint memory, they were headed back to the Stewart home to get their kids back. It was not that far from the beach. It was a two-story beach-house with a full veranda and upstairs landing located on a bluff about three blocks from where Jerry had found Max. Not sure what they were going to do, they snuck up on the house like prowlers, peeking in through the front doors to see inside the place. It was a very nice home with guitars on display, a piano on the landing to the back deck and an open kitchen. Theresa wanted a place just like it. At first, she saw no one, but then she saw someone. Jackson Stewart was sitting at the kitchen table doing his homework.

"Look at all those books."

"That's Justin in him all right." Jerry took the truth stone and placed it in his wife's hand. "Look, he's still going to think you're his mom. Go in there and put this in his hand."

"Right…" Theresa reacted nervously. When she lived here, she was not quite so apprehensive to be moving around this place, but now, with her memories of that other life removed, she felt funny about just walking in to this home. Nervously entering, fearing what she was doing, she just thought about getting her kids back. As she neared the sofa, Jackson looked up to him.

"Hey mom…" He grinned a bit. "Where are the groceries?"

"Uh…" Theresa reacted like a deer in headlights trying to think. "In the market?" She looked out to Jerry, scared and hesitant. He silently prodded her on with complete faith in her. "So… what are you doing?"

"Homework." Jackson answered. "Can you make me a sandwich?"

"Yeah, sure…" Theresa looked round unsure. She tried going through with it, but as she reached the table, she found something. She found a wand on the table and picked it up. She held it up for Jerry to see from outside on the porch, and he slapped his hand to head out of disbelief. This was much more bigger than he thought! Jackson Stewart was now a wizard!!! He entered the house.

"I checked the grounds, ma'am!!" Jerry spoke up loudly and clearly as he walked into the house very quickly improvising. "I found no trace of that gas leak."

"Gas leak?" Jackson sniffed the air. "I don't smell any gas."

"And it's a good thing too!!!" Jerry took the stone from his wife. "Because these things would have just set it off!"

"This thing?" Jackson scoffed and took the gem. "This is just a piece of round colored glass. It can't hurt…" He started groaning from his body and soul being ripped apart with wafts of smoke and white light. Jackson tumbled and dropped to the floor as his inner counterpart turned to mass and took the form of Justin Russo. Clad in an undershirt and his pajama pants, Justin started leaning to hit the floor, but his father caught him.

"Justin!!!" Jerry started shaking him awake. "Justin, wake up!!!" There was the sound of a vehicle outside. Jerry and Theresa turned their heads to the sound. There were several voices. That meant too many people and too many questions. Jerry lifted Justin over his shoulder and hurried to the back porch with Theresa following after him with Justin's wand. Behind them, Jackson stirred and tried shaking the confusion from his head.

"What happened?" He lifted himself up. "Where am I? Where's my sandwich?"

"For the last time, Miley…" Robby Ray entered the house behind his daughter, Oliver and Lily. "I'm not letting you throw a party. I'd be crazy to let you throw another one after that last one." He paused and looked round the beach house. "You literally woke up the dead!"

"It was just one little séance…" Miley ignored her brother to get some water from the refrigerator.

"At least we got to meet Marilyn Monroe." Lily had memories she shouldn't have. "I can't believe how boring she was. It was all John Kennedy this, John Kennedy that… She needed a life."

"I thought she was hot!" Oliver spoke up, but Miley slapped him across the stomach to remind him he was her boyfriend.

"What are you guys talking about?" Jackson had no memories of magic or being a wizard, but he did remember that Lily drove him crazy. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Jackson, you're looking very handsome today." She reached to adjust his hair. Why did he start feeling all creepy?

"Jackson…" Robby Ray dropped his key in a bowl on the counter and looked around the place. "Your mother back from the store yet?"

"Someone miss me…?" Theresa entered on cue after some prodding from her real husband to continue the illusion. Miley kissed her, and Oliver checked her out. She was a bit unprepared by the kiss from Robby Ray, but she smiled nervously and graciously as she entered the room. She looked out to Jerry and Justin now awake watching from the bushes below the back deck.

"Hey, darling…" Robby Ray looked at her thinking she was his wife. "Did you get my pork rinds?"

"Uh, no…" Theresa tried to improvise as good as her husband. "The store was out, but I'll try again later."

"Mom…" Miley confronted her. "Daddy said it's okay with him for me to throw a party if it's okay with you." Her father heard that and gave her that look. It meant he was displeased with her turning them against each other.

"Nice try, bud…"

"What's going on here?" Jackson couldn't take it and spoke up. "My school books are out, Miley and Oliver are dating, Lily's practically humping my leg and now, I suddenly have a step-mother?" He looked round to everyone completely confused. "Dad, when do you get…" Looking around, Theresa grabbed the pan on the stove and whacked him on the forehead. Jackson made a look of bewilderment, rounded his eyes in pain and swayed back and forth before passing out over the kitchen floor. Everyone looked at Theresa as if she had announced she was pregnant with kittens. Eager to win Jackson's heart, Lily dived to the floor to nurse his head.

"Oh my goodness…" Theresa reacted by badly improvising an accident. "I somehow accidentally smacked my baby boy upside the head with a frying pan." She paused and pulled her alleged daughter closer to her. "Miley, honey… I found this nice gem for you. I thought you would like it."

"Wow…" Miley paused from giggling after seeing her own mother whack Jackson. She looked at the ice cube sized gem in her hand. "A piece of round glass… thanks mom." She showed it to Oliver who held it up to the light.

"Baby…" Robby Ray looked to Theresa. "Why did you whack Jackson upside the head as if you were Tonya Harding babysitting a school of amateur ice-skaters at the fair?"

"It was an accident!" Theresa swore and looked out to Justin and Jerry outside watching and eavesdropping with a shrug of her shoulders. She didn't get it. Her lips voiced the question before them. Why didn't Miley and Alex separate?

"Dad…" Justin whispered now that he knew what was going on. "Why didn't it work?"

"I don't know…" Jerry was confused again. "The only thing I can figure is… maybe it's her dream everyone was trapped in?" He turned to Justin with a scared look in his eyes.


	9. Chapter 9

9

Theresa claimed to Robby Ray she was going to go stay with her sister, but she actually went home to Waverly Place with her real husband and two sons. The shop looked cleaner than it ever had been, Justin and Max's rooms were restored to as they once were, but neither of them had their mystical powers. With the spell around Alex and Hannah, there was no trace that Alex or Harper ever existed except with for the memories of her parents and brothers. Whatever was going on was far out of Jerry's experience. He needed guidance from someone had had learned his magic from Celtic wizards, Tibetan mages and Chinese mystics. Someone who had seen through the illusion of the fourth dimension and had traveled to other dimensions…

"Jerry…" Danvers sat in one of the shop's booth with the family. "If this spell is really linked to Miss Montana in the real world, we are going to have to separate her from Alex on the Dreamscape."

"Dreamscape…" Justin was unfamiliar with that reference. "Is that like the Dream Dimension?"

"Well, yes… and no…" Jerry told his son. "It's not like a real dimension like Asgard or Narnia…"

"You see, Justin…" Danvers grinned before his favorite apprentice. "The Dreamscape is nothing but a plane of existence… created by the dreams and memories of all living people, muggle and wizard, and it is constantly changing and being added to as different people dream at different times. It is both real and yet it is not… It's just between our world and whatever plane of existence we enter after we shed our mortal bodies. I'm going to send you there to look for your sister and Miss Finkle."

"Oh…" Justin looked to his parents and Max sitting near him. "I guess you got a spell to put me to sleep."

"Yes, it's called hypnotism." Danvers pulled out a small silver bauble handed down to him by the first Mahatma. He suspended it before Justin on a string. Theresa made a worried noise. Jerry wanted to go into the Dreamscape himself, but Justin had been there before. He'd know what to look for, and while telepathically linked to his mentor, he could resist it again. Danvers slightly allowed the trinket to sway.

"Justin…" Danvers lowered his voice to a whisper. "Follow the bauble with just your eyes… without moving your head." Justin's big brown eyes watched it sway back and forth.

"Watch it move back and forth, left and right, left and right, over and over… Feel your eyelids growing heavy… Your mind drifting away…" Danvers' voice slowed to a wise British drone. "Your arms are lead weights… you are getting sleepy…"

Jerry suddenly fell asleep at the nearby table. Quickly reacting, Theresa tried to wake him.

"Interesting…" Danvers looked up as Theresa tried to rouse him then looked to Justin. Still sitting up, Justin had closed his eyes and drifted off tiredly.

"Justin," Danvers continued as Theresa woke Jerry. "If you can hear me… raise your left arm…"

Justin raised his left arm.

"Very good…" Danvers responded as Max drifted closer to see if Justin was really hypnotized. "Now, lower it…"

Justin lowered his arm as his parents watched closely.

"Cluck like a chicken." Max asked.

"Awk-a-awk-a-hawwwww…." Justin sounded like a chicken as Jerry made a face of disapproval, grabbed Max and had Theresa take him up to the loft. Professor Danvers had never been around a wizard family like this. He responded a little intrigued yet curious, but Jerry just lightly smacked his son's seat for being a typical smart aleck kid and turned round to observe the proceedings.

"Now, Justin…" Danvers's voice continued. "I want you to descend deeper into sleep, feel yourself falling deeper into your dreams, but remember, no matter what happens, you can't get hurt. This is your journey, and I am your guide. I can pull you out at any time, but first… you must find your sister… she's lost somewhere with Miss Finkle, and only you can help her…" His voice echoed through Justin's head. The young high school senior felt himself floating and falling through clouds of gray and darkness. He was falling and descending through a doorway, entering a room of darkness… a large chamber resembling a metallic version of the underworld with a precipice and a lower level descending to the middle of the great room. The ceiling was covered with round and square ducts and heavy devices with cables and pipes hanging around him. Around him, the only lights were in red or dark orange. The air had a hazy look to it, smoke poured from vents and floor grates. He drifted closer into this dream and looked up to a huge shadow watching him. It was seven feet tall and wore a skull-like helmet with a long sinister cape. A loud hissing breath echoed through the room.

"The Force is with you, Young Russo…" Vader spoke. "But you are not a Jedi yet…"

The Star Wars theme started echoing loudly through the dream as Justin pulled out his light saber and attacked the Dark Sith Lord, a flurry of sparks exploding as light saber struck light saber. Justin tried striking him down, sabers meeting and sparking, Vader pushing him back and back further toward the carbonite freezing area. The movie theme resonating around him, the young wizard vaulted backward through the air and landed on his feet trying to hit Vader from the back, but the Imperial commander was much faster than that, defending himself as Justin rolled under the thrust and held taut to the light saber vibrating in his hands.

"Justin, are you staying on task?" Danvers' voice echoed as if he was the shadow of Ben Kenobi.

"No…" Justin confessed.

"Get with it…"

Justin veered clear of Darth Vader's light saber and rushed to enter another recurring dream of his, popping from a futuristic processing room to a clean white mansion where he arrived not dressed as a Rebel commander in the most successful of all science fiction action movies but as a dashing handsome young man in a suit and tie. The mansion was brilliantly clean with white walls adorned in American flags and historical antiques. The carpets were a clear blue and he was surrounded and protected by men in suits wearing sunglasses who spoke to compatriots through devices connected to their ears.

"Ladies and gentlemen…." A voice announced. "The President of the United States…"

"Hail To The Chief" played as Justin entered the room and walked across the stage before almost a hundred seated reporters rising to his arrival. Cameras bursting around him taking photos as he took his place, Justin tugged at his collar and took the podium ensconced with the Presidential emblem. He sipped a plastic cup of water handed him by an assistant and cleared his throat. His beautiful First Lady, Hillary Duff, just beamed to him while dressed in her pink Jacqueline Kennedy dress.

"My… fellow Americans…" Justin beamed as postured in this job of all jobs. "I just want you to know… I have balanced the budget, created an affordable health care system for all Americans, negotiated peace in the Middle East and made it against the law for telemarketers to harass you over the phone!!!" Everyone cheered as they applauded him the best president there had ever been in over ten generations. Justin held up his hands doing the victory sign in each hand. Everyone loved him!

"Justin, have you found your sister yet?" Danvers asked.

"No…"

"Get on with it…"

Justin sighed with a roll of his eyes, lowered his arms and raced off stage. Beyond the blare of his supporters, there was loud music coming from somewhere. He jogged through the backrooms of the White House, pushed through a door and felt himself at the rim of a giant concert. It was the size of a small city. The speakers were the size of skyscrapers and to get to the stage was the length of a mile or two but that meant nothing in a reality where time and space didn't exist. A few feet and Justin was midway across and still far away. The stage was immense… the length of five city blocks. He hesitantly pushed his way through the crowd. It looked like the audience from a haunted warehouse basement. Interspersed within the wispy shadows of dreamers were dancing and jumping mannequins being raised up and down from the floor on poles. Some of the concert-goers didn't have heads, just empty opening in their hair where faces should be while others had heads but not faces. Justin was both disturbed and bothered by some of the so-called people he saw here. He saw couples connected together by hoses or wires, by chains or ropes… One girl was connected Siamese twin style with her boyfriend. It was almost as if whoever was asleep right now was at this concert… Justin couldn't tell who was singing yet; the voice blared out over the titanic speakers was too loud for him to understand.

"Hey, Justin…" Oliver Oaken wandered by enjoying the music. "I'm glad you made it back. Have you seen Jackson?"

"Who?" Justin reacted confused. "Do I know you?"

"You're so funny." The words on Oliver's t-shirt kept changing. First it read "Hannah Montana 2010" and then it read "Hannah Forever." He gestured to Justin as if they were friends. "Dude, Lily is really ticked off; you're supposed to be dancing with her."

"Who's Lily?!" Justin asked.

"You're so funny…" Oliver had been overcome by the dream. His t-shirt now read, "Hannah's Non-Stop Concert." Justin turned away as people were parachuting into the arena. There was so many people. How was he going to find anyone in this mess? It was part concert, part war zone and part-riot. It was the concert that never stopped. People dropped and jumped up all the time. The crowd was littered with both shades of dreamers, fake people made of wood, stone and plastic and zombie-like creatures all dancing and enjoying the music. Justin looked round the musical underworld then up to the stage where Hannah Montana ruled over her subjects.

"_Got my hands up, they're playing my song, and now I'm going to be okay…_" She was singing, dancing to her music and controlling this dream. "_Yeah, it's a party in the USA! Yeah, it's a party in the USA_." Twenty feet behind her, unattended instruments were playing by themselves, held by invisible hands and pounding out her music. Justin looked at them to Hannah reaching out to him. Her hand could somehow reach and stroke his chin even from fifteen feet away as space and distance were warped and changed. Alarmed and confused, Justin spun round searching and observing this unearthly concert. He then heard Harper's voice screaming out of excitement. Possessed by the dream, she was somewhere nearby. Justin looked to find her, lost her for a second then found her again. She was mixed and merged with another girl he did not know. One minute she was herself, and then she was Lily Truscott, the two of them merged together on the dreamscape as one person.

"Harper!!!" Justin tried to save her.

"Hey, Justin…" Harper turned into Lily. "I missed you so much. Let's go somewhere and…" She giggled as she became Harper again.

"Harper, where's Alex!!!" Justin asked her.

"She's on stage, silly…" Lily answered as her face replaced Harper's face.

"With Hannah?"

"No, silly!" Lily became Harper. "She is Hannah!!!"

"Alex!!!" Justin turned and raced to the stage. All at once, it was ten feet away, a hundred feet away, fifty feet and just under him. He dodged other dream people, other shades and other spectators… falling and clutching at the edge of the stage as Hannah continued singing.

"_We haven't met_…" Hannah briefly noticed him and turned back to her fans. "_But that's okay… you will be asking for me one day_…"

"Alex!!!" Justin continued to hold on to the age as he pulled himself up.

"_Don't close… your eyes… because it's a chance worth taking, and I think I can shake you_…"

"Alex!!!" Justin was pulling himself up. He was suddenly over a thousand feet in the air over miles and miles of people in the center of open countryside surrounded by buildings turned into loudspeakers. "Alex…" Justin tried saving his sister. "Alex, you've got to wake up!!!!"

"Get out of here, Justin!!!" Hannah hissed at him and pulled her microphone close. "_I know where I stand, I know who I am, I would never run away when life gets bad, it's everything I see, every part of me, going to get what I deserve… I got nerve_!!!" She whipped her wand out and blasted him off the stage. "Get off my stage, Justin!!!"

Justin was knocked to his feet and sent skidding back over the edge from that lightening strike from his sister's. That's when he realized what was going on. Alex not only enjoyed being Hannah Montana, but Hannah loved being a wizard. That's why they couldn't be ripped apart in the real world. They were holding each other hostage to be each other! He looked down the hundreds of feet to the ground and up to Hannah a hundred feet tall controlling this dream. She was both Alex and Miley and Hannah… and only he could save them both.

"_So what you see is only half the story, there's another side of me_…" Hannah twirled Alex's wand in her left hand. "_I'm the girl you know, but I'm someone else too… if you only knew_…"

"Alex!!!" Justin screamed over the madness as he came crawling back. "Please… you have to wake up!!!"

"Say goodbye, Justin…." Hannah struck out at Justin with her human-sized foot, but he caught it and went flying up into the air. With his wizard powers or not, this was a dream and he could do anything. The Star Wars theme playing over the Hannah Montana theme, he came flying back with his light saber and deflected the lightning bolts Hannah fired at him. The fans loved it as they screamed louder. Dressed as Luke Skywalker, Justin vaulted and slid out of the way at Hannah trying to blast him off the stage, her wand bouncing off that sword of pure plasma energy. Her long blonde hair whirled around her seven feet in length as Justin parried and eluded her, deflecting her every attack. The Hannah music, the lightning bolts, the theme music, the roar of the fans… it was deafening… Justin spun round hard and fast… severing Hannah's hand from the microphone in her right hand as it went flying. A bit of the Force and Justin captured it from out of the air. When he looked back, Alex and Miley were at his feet. They looked at each other and scrambled to get it back. Miley knocked him down screaming and Alex reached to retake the microphone.

"No!!!" Justin was screaming as they fought him for the power to become Hannah again. He stretched his arm away from them off the stage, trying to keep it from them. "You can't have it!!!

"Hand it over!!!" Miley screamed.

"Give it to me, Justin!!!" Alex was trying to keep Miley back.

"Alex, please! You got to wake up!!!!" He watched his sister's hand melting inside his arm to retake the microphone, Miley's hand melting into him as well. Justin started screaming as they started remerging with each other around him. "Alex, wake up!!! Professor Danvers!!!!" Justin held the microphone out further and further away from them then opened his fingers… allowing the microphone to drop into nothingness….


	10. Chapter 10

10

Justin woke with a start sweating and screaming in bed. His bed sheets were tangled and wrapped tightly around him as if he had been mummified. He was hanging off the bed with his arm sticking out over the floor; upon realizing where he was, he fought and kicked to free himself. Scrambling to his feet distressed and hysterical, he stumbled a bit and rushed to get to his feet, then staggering around in the dark as his father and mother came to find him. Jerry looked at him and squeezed him tight realizing he had did it!!!

"Dad… Dad…" Justin was frantic and panic-stricken. "There was a dream. There was a…"

"Justin…" Jerry had never been so proud. The loft was restored, the shop was back and the family back together. "When you saved your sister, you broke the spell. It's the other night again! It's over!"

"But it was so real!"

"Justin, it was a simple wish spell powered by the Dreamscape…" Jerry was glad to have his family back. "That's why it seemed so powerful. You did it! You saved your…"

Alex started screaming! Theresa turned around and rushed to her, just barely missing Max in the hallway. With Jerry and Justin behind her, she rushed to Alex's room, threw open the door and hurried to comfort her daughter. Screaming her head off, Alex was experiencing night terrors. Pulled out of the dream too violently, her mind was not back yet. She was still partially there and conscious at the same time. The reality shock left her confused and out of control. Upon seeing Justin, Harper in her long nightgown rushed to hug him from after her nightmare.

"Where am I?!!" Alex's eyes were full of tears. "What happened? Who am I?!!" She was going through dream withdrawal.

"Lexie, you're home!" Theresa tried to calm her.

"Alex!!" Jerry tried to help her as he pulled her close. "Baby, you're home!! You're okay!!!"

"I don't know you, people!!!" Alex pushed her parents away, jumped out of bed in her t-shirt and sweat pants and backed in terror from these people watching her. "My name is Hannah Montana!!!" She had a Tennessee accent. "I don't live here!!!"

"Jerry, what's going on here?" Theresa didn't know what to do as she looked to her husband the wizard for guidance. Justin and Harper watched in shock. Max couldn't believe what she had said.

"We didn't separate them fast enough!!!" Tears falling down her face, Jerry distraughtly pulled his hand back over his head. "Her memories are still mixed up with Hannah's." He looked to his daughter. "Alex, honey, it's me! I'm your father. You got to…" He saw movement beyond the edge of the bed. Someone was on the floor, lifting herself up to her feet by the bed… Brushing her long blonde hair back, Hannah noticed Alex's wand on the nightstand, hitting it so it flew up into the air and then grabbing it from over her head.

"No…" Jerry backed up as she came closer. "This is impossible. You can't be here." He watched as Hannah came closer to him holding Alex's wand on him, looking around the room confused and reached out to Alex, grabbing and pulling her close, taking her hostage at the tip of the wand to her throat.

"Dad…" Justin defended his mother and Harper as the family backed from the shade of the pop star. "What's happened? I still don't have my wizard powers!!!"

"She still has them, Justin…" Jerry revealed unsure what to do. "Along with Alex's and Max's…" He looked to Hannah holding Alex captive. Although Miley Stewart was asleep on the West Coast, her dream counterpart was in Alex's room on the East Coast. To her, this was all still just a dream. In another few hours, she'd be waking up, and she was still going to be a wizard when she woke up.

"Hey, Alex…." She whispered to the middle Russo daughter, holding Alex in front of her as a shield. "Missed you at the concert. Being Hannah is a lot of fun, right?"

Alex nodded her head ready to be her again.

"If we're going to do it again, you're going to have to be me again."

"Okay…"

"Jerry…" Theresa looked to her husband as they were backed into the hall. "Do something!!!"

"There's nothing I can do…" Jerry realized Hannah was going to rejoin with his daughter. "She's got the power. She's got the kids' wizard powers!!"

"Uh, dad?" Max saw a ball of light coming up the stairs from the loft. It was covered in a thick ethereal mist and as it came closer, Max saw the outline of a beautiful woman around it become clearer and more defined. The spirit of Susan Stewart was still near them. Pulling upon the powerful energies of this place left behind by the residue of countless spells, the ectoplasm made her look nearly alive once more. She crossed between Jerry and Theresa, before Harper clutching Justin and paused before her daughter holding Alex captive.

"Momma?"

"Miley Ray Stewart!" Susan spoke upset with her daughter. "I am so ashamed of you! You let that girl go and let her have her powers back. I raised you to be better than that!!!"

"But momma…" Hannah held on to Alex by the throat in front of her in the hall. "I'm a wizard now. I can bring you back to life now. I got so many cool powers. You won't believe what I can…"

"Hush your mouth!" Susan shook her finger at her daughter. "How would you explain to your daddy and Jackson me suddenly being alive much less all the people who attended my funeral? I raised you better than this, baby girl! Now, you let Alex go and return home."

"But, momma…" Hannah let Alex go to rush to her father's loving embrace. Father and daughter were reunited.

"But nothing, Miley!!!" Susan's spirit was slowly fading away as she tried to stay in the realm of the living. "Now, you go on home now…"

"But momma…" Hannah's dream form was fading away as the wand fell from her fingers. "I miss you so much…." She evaporated into nothing as Alex picked up her wand from where it had landed. A deep breath, she looked to her father with a light smile and then to Justin, her mother, Harper and Max. Her memories and true identity were returning. Twirling her wand over her head, her t-shirt faded and broke apart into a blouse, her sweatpants merged into a skirt and dark tights extended down her legs.

"I'm back!!!" She grinned with her identity back. Her parents hugged her tightly. Justin hugged her too and swung his wand to his room to make his action figures come to life and start partying. On the shelf over his desk, three-inch tall Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon Five and Battlestar Galactica figures were dancing and celebrating. Max tried to mystically summon a midnight snack and got hit in the face with a cream pie. Harper hurried to hug Alex, but things were not as joyous everywhere. On the West Coast, Miley woke from her dream bathed in the moonlight entering her room, the sound of the distant surf and sea birds ringing over the beach house. Her eyes were full of tears. Weeping distraughtly, she sank her head into the pillow buried under long locks of brown hair and cried her eyes out. Her heart was pouring with emotion, her eyes translucent in the dimmed night as she mourned her mother. Her chest bawled several times trying to stop before she felt someone's hand stroking her back. Thinking her mother was back, Miley spun round to see her.

"You!!!" It was Alex sitting at the edge of her bed in the dark room. "You're real?!"

"Yeah…" Alex shed a tear and sniffed a bit. "I'm sorry about your mom."

"I miss her so much…." Miley was slow to forget her dream. "I mean… I never realized just how much until I was you and shared your mom." She paused a second wondering if she had any magic powers left. "You're a wizard?"

Alex nodded a bit secretly.

"Uh… you know, now that you have your magic back again, could you…."

"I'm not that powerful a wizard." Alex tried to be sensitive. "Much less a very good one…" She confessed with an embarrassed look away.

"So, I guess everything is back to as it was…" Miley sniffed a bit. "Oliver and Lily are back together, you got your powers back, Lily isn't in love with Jackson… Oliver won't recall being in love with me, will he?"

"No…" Alex revealed. "It will just be a dream to them that they will quickly forget, but you still might have to deal with Michayla…"

"Alex…" Miley sat up a bit more in bed, looked for her dad and turned back to Alex. "It is Alex, isn't it? Is there anything you can do about…"

"Michayla?" Alex sounded. "To tell the truth, I'm not crazy about her myself. She looks like someone I know and it creeps me out!" She giggled a bit with Miley as if they were sisters. "Look, it may be three o'clock here, but it's eight in the morning on the East Coast, and I've got to be getting to school soon. Um, you can keep my secret about me being a wizard, right?"

"If you keep my secret about being Hannah Montana…"

"Deal!" They shook hands then hugged as friends.

"I so loved being a wizard!" Miley grinned a bit.

"And I so loved being a pop star!!!" Alex hid a little smirk.

END


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